


Reunion Tour

by asocialconstruct



Series: Multiple Subcutaneous Hematomas [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: HYDRA Trash Party, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, dead dove do not eat, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:52:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/pseuds/asocialconstruct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ETA: the rape/noncon warning is for on screen, present-tense events, and I mean it when the tag says no happy ending.  Proceed with caution if those are a concern for you.  All hurt, no comfort.</p><p>For a prompt: The Winter Soldier wasn't treated like a person, and no one he worked with saw him as one. I'm interested in how persistent that belief would be, even after Bucky's escape. So imagine someone from Hydra, Rumlow?, having to interact with post-CATWS!Bucky, for whatever reason, for some length of time. And it doesn't matter that Bucky can joke, contribute opinions, and make decisions; or that he's wearing normal clothing, maybe even cut his hair; that not even his demeanor resembles the Winter Soldier's anymore; that he looks, acts, and talks like an independent human being in control of his own life. In this Hydra agent's view, he's still the dead-eyed freak he always was, dressing himself up in a person suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> seriously, this does not have a happy ending

Brock’s on a pretty tight leash, but it’s worth it.  Shield hasn’t rooted out all of Hydra, never will, so what’s a little plea deal to get out and make contact again.  Brock knows that whatever intel he has to hand Shield is months old and useless besides, but Shield doesn’t seem to know that, so he’ll ride as far as his ticket will get him.

Rogers’ face is pretty much worth it, even if Brock has Romanoff’s gun in the small of his back when he’s pushed into the quinjet to see it.  Cap’s face is pinched and prim, but Shield needs Brock’s biometrics for this boondoggle and they both know it.  God bless the squeamishness of idiots, Pierce would have just scooped Brock's eyeballs out.  Or had the asset do it.

“Cap,” Brock says mildly, just to see him bristle.  And boy, bristle he does.

“You’re not here to talk,” Cap grits, looking about ready to break a tooth with how hard he’s clenching his jaw.

“Yeah?  And what’s Captain America gonna do to shut me up, hit a handcuffed man?”

“He might not, but I will,” Romanoff interrupts, jabbing him in the back with her gun.  “Move.”  She shoves him into the jump seat up front, and yeah, that’s a promise and not a threat because she already has.  Fucking hot.

Rogers stomps off with that stick ups his ass, and Brock just smiles at his back and settles in as Romanoff handcuffs him to the seat.  It would practically be a win if Brock did get Rogers to hit him, just to show Captain America that he’s just as corruptible as anyone else.

Romanoff leaves him there, and even if he knows she’s got one eye on him, it’s basically like being back on a strike team, everybody buzzing around him to prep for takeoff.  The lines of Rogers’ back are stiff as he pointedly avoids looking at Brock.  Cap never was good at subtle, but that’s part of his charm.

Then there’s another shape moving through the jet, and with that unnatural stiffness it’s—yeah.  Makes sense.  Brock had half wondered what happened to the asset when all he had to do was float on morphine and think, and it turns out that sanctimonious bastard Rogers isn’t as high and mighty as he’d have everyone think if he’s got Hydra’s favorite murder zombie on a leash.

They’ve cut the asset’s hair, so it doesn’t look quite so half feral.  It’s a pretty good look, better if they’ve got the asset out for more covert ops like this with the wool coat and jeans, but they haven’t done anything about the blank eyes.  Someone even thought to pierce the asset’s ears and it fits the hipster thing the rest of the team has going, even if Rogers and that asshole Barton look like old men at a kid’s costume party.  Brock may not look like much in the face anymore, but at least he knows how to wear clothes.

The asset moves past Brock and into the cockpit with barely a glance and no flicker of recognition, so they must have found the chair too.  That’s good.  That’s very, very good and it means Brock might be getting out of this sooner than he thought.

The asset moves back to Rogers at the rear of the plane, and Rogers tenses even further, practically hunching in on himself.  Not used to the asset yet.  Newbie.

And then—the asset puts a hand on Rogers’ elbow and says something that Brock can’t hear, and some of the tension eases out of Rogers.  Brock can’t hear them over the noise of the engine revving up, but they say something back and forth until Rogers glances back at Brock with a frown and the asset shakes its head and _smiles_.  And that’s weird.  Unsettling, is what it is.  Brock never saw the asset smile in ten years and it never occurred to him that the asset even could.

The asset moves back and forth past Brock after that, hauling gear in without even acknowledging him even though Rogers is practically incandescent with how hard he’s telegraphing how much he’d like to beat someone’s face in.  Unclear chain of command, then.  Better and better.

The rest mostly ignore him after that, and that’s fine.  It’s a familiar thrum and ebb of mission prep and it feels good to be back even if he has to be handcuffed for it.  They put Brock up front where they can all keep eyes on him, but it means he can see all of them, even if he can’t hear much over the engine.  Romanoff sits cattycorner to him, just out of his peripheral vision enough with the scar tissue that it would be obvious if he tried to look at her.  Widow’s sidekick and Cap’s new sidekick with the wings sit just to either side of Brock, disposable muscle in case he decides to be trouble, Brock supposes.

Cap and the asset sit as far from Brock as they can and still be in the plane, but it’s a little thing so that’s really only eight feet or so.

So it’s not like Brock can keep from looking, they’re sitting right there.  The asset does that weird unnatural stillness thing it always does, sitting with what would be loose joints if it was anyone else doing it, but dead still so it turns out as a weird pantomime of how a person sits.  It’s different than it used to be, though, and Brock can’t quite figure out why until he realizes that the asset is mirroring Wilson and Rogers’ body language the way the asset used to mirror Brock and Rollins.

Rogers talks at the asset, who does the thing where it looks like it’s only half listening because it’s tracking something else—in this case, Romanoff and Wilson, eyeing them both up like they’re going to do something, totally ignoring Brock and Barton as irrelevant.  The asset used to do that with Brock and Rollins, ignoring the newbies, and Brock supposes it makes sense with Romanoff but he didn’t think Wilson had it in him.

Rogers makes a gesture as he talks, and Brock catches the way the asset half flinches—not like a person would do, with a bodily flinch, the asset does it more with tense lips and half closed eyes even though its face is already turned away from Rogers, waiting for the slap.  Brock always liked that about the asset.  Never remembered anyone’s name from mission to mission but always knew how to read a room.

Then Cap says something else and the asset finally turns to look at him.  “Christ, Steve, there’s a reason you’re not in charge of the fucking party planning,” the asset snaps, loud enough to carry over the engines.  Romanoff snorts.

“I’m just saying, if we go in fast with a frontal assault we can—“ Rogers starts.

“The last fucking time we ‘went in fast,’ we ended up pinned down for almost two goddamn hours waiting for backup, so we’re fucking doing it Romanoff’s way,” the asset says.  Practically as many words together as Brock’s heard the asset say in ten years, and he didn’t know the asset could curse either.

“Clint, Sam, come on—“ Rogers starts.

“Finish your own fights, Cap,” Barton says without opening his eyes from where he’d settled with arms crossed and legs stretched out, and the asset snorts.

“Yeah, I’m with Barnes and Nat on this one, man,” Cap’s sidekick says.  “You know how I feel about getting shot.”

Rogers frowns but the asset flat out laughs and turns to Wilson to say something else, but catches Brock’s eye instead.  There’s a moment where recognition flickers over the asset’s face, eyes gone wide and mouth pressed into that stupid fucking pout.

And the asset blushes and drops his look.  The asset doesn’t blush.  Heatstroke and exertion, sure, but _blushing_.  Rogers and Wilson follow the sudden silence and glare at Brock like he’d done anything.

Brock just shrugs at Cap and Rogers gets so busy glaring at Brock that Cap doesn’t even notice the way the asset shivers away from Rogers’ hand on its knee.  Wilson mutters something to Barton beside him, eyes on the asset.

Wilson and Rogers talk at the asset, nothing mission critical in front of Brock because they’re not completely stupid, so he tunes it out.  Closes his eyes to doze because Widow is reading something and burning a hole in the side of his face with watching him and Barton’s snoring, so there’s not a whole fuck of a lot else to do besides listen to Cap and his sidekick debate the shittiness of diner coffee.

It’s the asset that keeps glancing at him.  Brock was good at his job because he was good at reading the asset, so it’s not like he can’t not know when the asset’s looking at him, as fidgety and tense as the asset ever gets.  Brock catches it by accident the first couple times and then stares back, because what the fuck.  The asset’s more and more agitated, Brock recognizes it even if no one else seems to.  Metal hand curled and flesh fingers pressed together is what passes for fidgeting for the asset, pressing the tension out.  That blush creeps back, and the asset keeps not-quite looking at him even though Rogers and Wilson try to block with their body language.

The asset stands and there’s a sudden silence in the little cabin as everyone looks at Brock except the asset.  “Wilson, you got that iPod?” the asset asks.  Wilson pulls it out of a coat pocket and hands it over with a smile, the asset taking it up to the pilot.  Brock can smell the asset, they’re so close, and the asset smells like Old Spice or some shit.  Rogers always had terrible old man taste.  There’s a murmured conversation up front and a laugh, and then there’s—fucking Marvin Gaye coming over the sound system.

The asset comes back to the cabin and fist bumps Wilson on the way back to Rogers.

“Really? Marvin Gaye?” Brock says to Wilson, because there’s the plea deal and then there’s dumb bullshit.

“I said this was a bad idea,” Wilson mutters without acknowledging him.

“Yeah, we all did, Wilson,” Barton says without opening his eyes.  Rogers just glares as the asset settles back next to him.  Brock wants to tell Cap to stop making that face or it’ll freeze that way.

“At least no one on Strike picked shit music for flights,” Brock snaps at Wilson and Barton, because awkward silence is better than this.

“Seriously man,” Wilson sighs.  “I do not have time for your white power Lynyrd Skynyrd shit.”

“Skynyrd isn’t—“ Brock and Barton start at the same time.

“Most popular band with white power groups according to the Southern Poverty Law Center,”  Wilson interrupts.  “And nobody wants to listen to that shit anyway.”

“Aw, Skynyrd, no,” Barton mumbles.

“Cut the bickering boys, mission lead picks the music,” Romanoff says.  She’s so quiet he’d practically forgotten her.  Good way to end up dead.

“This is why you’re not in charge of party planning, Steve,” the asset says, with that little half smile again.  “Shit taste in music.”

“Don’t even start, you sing Uptown Funk just as much as anyone else, Buck—“ and that’s when the penny finally drops for Brock.  Because _Bucky_ fucking _Barnes_.  No wonder the painful playacting like the asset’s a person.  Yeah, Brock had noticed the weird resemblance with Cap’s war photos, like anyone with half a brain, but it was just a little too perfect for the rumors to be true.  Bucky goddamn Barnes.

Brock laughs under his breath and only asset catches it, because for all that they’ve got the asset playing at normal, there’s still that laser focus and Brock’s got all the asset’s attention now.  Because Brock knows, and the asset knows he knows, so much more about the dead man playacting Bucky Barnes than anyone else alive, even Cap.  Especially Cap.

The asset finally looks him in the eye for more than half a second and holds it, and Brock smiles back because he’s sure now that Barton, Wilson and Romanoff are there as much to keep the asset in line as they are to keep Brock in line.  They need him, and Cap getting petty revenge isn’t part of that.  That’s pretty fucking perfect as far as Brock’s concerned.

The asset looks at him through eyelashes with chin tilted down like for Pierce, mouth twisted around something.  But then the asset drops the look first, same as last time.  Like a dog, backing down for displays of dominance.


	2. Chapter 2

The mission goes to shit basically as soon as they land in Minneapolis, which is pretty perfect as far as Brock’s concerned.  His eyeballs still unlock doors, but that’s about all that goes according to plan.

They pile out of the quinjet on some windy rooftop that’s freezing balls and then it’s down to the skyways for the first bit because Hydra’s big on hiding in plain sight.  Brock was never a big fan because there’s no way to subtly walk into a bank wearing full tac gear, but he didn’t get paid for his real estate opinions.

They hit it right at the lunch rush and everyone’s in the skyways instead of the street because it’s Minnesota in March, and the asset doesn’t stick out as bad in the crowd as Rogers does.  Cap’s got the shield in what he’s trying to pass off as the world’s biggest bodhran bag, and it’s fucking dumb.  Except for the way the asset slides back and forth between mirroring Brock and Wilson’s walks, they blend in pretty well.  Romanoff undoes Brock’s cuffs but keeps a small hand clamped around his arm, and he doesn’t doubt she could keep him from making a break so he doesn’t.  He’s got a better plan anyway.

The cuffs go back on as soon as they’re past the first door and out of public view.  Romanoff keys them off and on with her thumbprint, and it would be a gamble, but hers probably isn’t the only fingerprints that unlock the cuffs.  Wouldn’t take much to find out, anyway.

The asset had a rifle in pieces in the coat, and the rifle gets assembled while they walk through the gray carpeted hallways, Wilson, Romanoff and Rogers pulling pistols from their coats along with the shield.  The asset and Rogers take point, followed up by Wilson and Widow at Brock’s back and Barton taking up the rear.  It’s a cubicle farm like any other, except that it’s dead empty in a way that creeps even Brock out.  There’s even coffee cups and shit still sitting on desks and some of the fluorescents flicker on over the middle aisle as they move to the back offices.

Brock gave this up in one of his first debriefings because they’d started downsizing this branch even before DC, and the poor bastards working out here were posted to Minnesota anyway so it wasn’t like their lives could get any worse.

It goes to shit for Cap and friends when Brock’s eyeballs open what’s supposed to be the central stairway down to the server racks, and only Cap, Widow, Brock and asset make it through the door before the mechanized steel fire door starts closing at the same time something explodes in the cubicle farm.  Hydra’s not stupid.  Brock gave up this place first because he was reasonably sure his biometrics would have been cleared out or rekeyed in the system when it was downsized, and it’s looking like he was right.  Now to just keep his own ass from getting shot at.

“Little help here?” Wilson’s voice says out of someone’s earpiece and through the door at the same time as the sound of gunfire picks up outside the door.

“Open it,” Rogers snaps at Brock, and even Widow and the asset look at Cap incredulously because there’s obviously no retina scanner or keypad on this side.  Roof and top floor exit only, because the basement hadn’t been only for servers.  Brock shrugs as much as he can with the cuffs.

“Keep going, we’ll circle down from the top,” Barton says through an earpiece but not through the door, so they must have moved away by now.  Fat chance of that, but not Brock’s problem.  The opposite of Brock’s problem.

So down it is.  Rogers takes point, Widow and the asset poking Brock in the kidneys with their guns.  Another door and another set of stairs, then they’re winding through maintenance corridors with dim bulbs every hundred feet or so, and Barton and Wilson finally go quiet through the earpieces.  First trailing off to static, and then to nothing.  Romanoff and Rogers frown at each other and keep going until Romanoff calls a halt at a t-intersection.

“This wasn’t on the map,” Rogers says, and Romanoff gives Brock a cool look.

“Been six years since I was here,” Brock says.  “Two for the asset.”  Rogers’ eyes flick back where the asset must be over Brock’s shoulder, but there’s no answer because of course there isn’t.

They huddle with Romanoff’s gun aimed straight between his eyes, and Brock doesn’t move because he doesn’t doubt that she’d do it, consequences and finding a way out of this maze be damned.  Rogers gestures back at Brock, radiating anger, and the asset shakes its head.  Romanoff’s impossible to read, so Brock doesn’t try.

Finally, when Rogers looks about like he’s ready to slap the asset, the asset sets its shoulders and jaw.  “Steve, it’s fine,” the asset says.  And Brock can tell it’s not fine, because the asset’s eyes keep half sliding back to Brock before snapping back to Rogers, and the asset is definitely mirroring Brock’s posture now and not Rogers’.  “I’m fine,” the asset says.  “You said you’d let me make the call.”

Widow looks the asset up and down while Rogers chews on that, scowling at his shoes, and the look on her face says that she knows something’s up with the asset.  But they didn’t bring Brock along to play asset whisperer, so goddamn if he’s going to.  Fucking pathetic if they’ve had this past year to read up on the asset’s care and maintenance and haven’t figured out what it looks like when the asset’s looking for orders in an unclear situation.

Rogers finally nods at Widow and the asset, and Widow takes point this time.  She prowls down the left hand turn, and it’s unnerving the way she disappears into the dark, even wearing goddamn neon shoes.  She moves like the asset when she wants to, and it’s half sexy and half terrifying to see a woman move like that.

Rogers takes the right turn, and the asset nudges Brock in the small of the back with the rifle to follow.  The air’s too hot for all that it was freezing balls outside, like they’re under the facilities plant for the building, and the only sound is Rogers’ footfalls because the asset’s behind Brock and might as well not be there for all the sound it makes.  There’s ductwork and piping and loose wires snaking every which way up and down the walls, and Brock doesn’t say it but they’re probably headed in the right direction for the server racks because he remembers everyone bitching about what a pain it had been to splice in power and coolant circulation from the rest of the building when Pierce had ordered the server racks installed.  Brock’s sweating balls under the wool peacoat they threw at him, and having hands cuffed in front of himself doesn’t help much.

Brock clears his throat for some kind of noise.  “So, Cap, if this is a horror movie, are you the virgin that lives, or the jock who dies?” Brock asks, making conversation because Hydra’s dark basements creep even him out.  No goddamn reason for all the doorless underground corridors except to freak the fuck out of prisoners.  “Since we already got rid of the black friend and the slutty cheerleader, I mean.”

“Rumlow, if you don’t shut the hell up, you’re going to be the jock,” Rogers says without looking at him.

“Didn’t take you for the murdering prisoners type, Cap,” Brock says, just to goad him.

Rogers gives Brock a long look over his shoulder, and then glances past Brock to the asset.  “There were seven of us, during the war,” Rogers says after a while, turning forward again, and Brock sighs at the subject change.  Story time.  “Me, Bucky, Morita, Jones, Dugan, Juniper, Falsworth and Dernier, behind enemy lines.  No air support, no radio contact for weeks.  Took out some big Hydra installations, some little ones.  Ran almost a hundred missions in two years and only brought back prisoners once,” Rogers says slowly, like he’s talking to a child, like Brock hasn’t read about this a thousand times between Rogers’ files and Hydra.  Rogers glances back at Brock with his head tilted, like he’s curious about something.  “What do you think happened all the other times, Brock?”

It’s the easiness of the way Rogers says his name for the first time in months, admitting to war crimes in that steady, even voice, because yeah, they don’t put that in the files or the Smithsonian.  The asset nudging him in the small of his back with the rifle brings Brock back, though.  “No guesses who you had do the deed,” Brock says, and Rogers frowns before turning back.

“Shut up, Rumlow,” Cap says.  Hit a nerve, then.

“Some things never change,” Brock says, because Rogers gave him the upper hand and Brock’s not stupid enough to let it go.  There’s a door and a bend in the corridor up ahead, and it might have been six years but Brock’s starting to get his bearings again.  “Seventy years is a long time, Cap.  Hard to build something without the foundation already in place.  You’d have fit right in with Hydra.  Did, for a couple years.”

“Shut up,” the asset growls behind him, the first time the asset’s said anything directly to Brock, and isn’t that interesting.

Brock glances over his shoulder with a smile and looks the asset up and down like he’s actually considering it.  The asset looks back, mouth twisting like it’s going to say something else.  So Brock smiles wider.  All he has to say is, “No,” and the asset flinches violently and breaks eye contact.

“Course, Shield always knew you two made a good team,” Brock says conversationally to Rogers’ back like the asset never interrupted.  Cap’s back tenses up at that, but he stays quiet.  Gay for Barnes, probably, Brock’s seen the photos, but it’s hard to believe the asset ever wanted anything.  “D’you even know how many times you were the asset’s front for an operation?  More than a couple, I can tell you that.  Pierce was thinking about doing the happy reunion differently before you got your panties all in a twist about Insight, Cap.”

The sudden crackle of their earpieces interrupts whatever Rogers was going to snap back.  “We’re in the stairwell, but we’ve got company,” Wilson says.  Sounds out of breath.  Brock would never have put a goddamn pussy paramedic on a tac team, so it serves them right.  “Cap, Barnes, Widow’s off the grid and you’ve been spot—“

The Minnesota branch hasn’t been completely downsized, because somebody’s shooting from behind them as Wilson’s voice crackles away, and the asset shoves Brock face first into the wall before shooting back.  The asset covers them while Rogers takes half a second to cuff Brock to a pipe before sprinting off into the gunfire with the shield.  And not like that’s never happened before in a tight situation, but then there’s a distant explosion and Brock’s still shaking stars out of his vision enough that the flashing lights don’t immediately register until the asset’s trying to pry open the fire door that’s coming down between them and Rogers.  Rogers is pounding on metal from what sounds like further down the corridor, not the other side of this fire door, but the gunfire’s stopped.

There’s the sound of what must be Cap’s shield ricocheting off the fire door and then the wall.  “Bucky, I can’t,” Rogers’ voice says through the asset’s earpiece, and the asset finally lets the fire door close.  “Are you—“

“Yeah, Steve, I’m fine,” the asset says into its earpiece, rubbing its face and leaning against the fire door.  “It’s fine, I’ve got eyes on Rumlow, he’s with me.”  And isn’t that interesting, that the asset’s learned to lie, because the asset’s scowling at the cement floor and looking everywhere _but_ at Brock.

“Cap, Barnes, we might have found control,” Barton’s voice says in the asset’s earpiece.  A little staticky, at the limits of range, probably.  “If you hang tight we might be able to find you and get the doors up.  Widow’s back on grid.”

“Barnes,” Romanoff says, distant.  “I’ve got a location for you, I can circle back—“

“Christ, everybody, I’m fine,” the asset snaps, still rubbing its temples and scowling at the floor.  The rifle’s slung useless over one shoulder now, the asset’s flesh arm is tucked under the metal one across the asset’s chest.  “Stick to the goddamn plan.  I’ve got eyes on a likely route to the servers, regroup as planned.”

Then the asset takes the earpiece out, tucks it in a coat pocket, slings the rifle back over its shoulder, and walks right past Brock without a look.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Brock says to the asset’s back.  “Get over here.”

The asset stops dead, back rigid, and finally turns to face him.  The asset’s got the metal hand tight on the rifle and flesh thumb and index finger pressed together over it with that stupid look when it tries to not say something.  Didn’t work for Pierce, didn’t work for Brock or Rollins or anyone else because the asset’s always been an open book, so Brock waits patiently.  He watches the asset take a couple of deep breaths and swallow, mouth twisting around whatever it’s trying to say.  Shield might have cut the asset’s hair to make it look less feral, but in the dim light there’s more of the asset left than whatever there was before.

“Go fuck yourself, you rapist piece of shit,” the asset says slowly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for real this does not have a happy ending, bail now

Brock laughs, can’t help it.  They’d done such a good job pretending the asset had something in there they’d gotten the asset playing along with it too.  The asset half-flinches at that like it did from Rogers.  Mouth tense, half a blink.

“They tell you that?” Brock asks, knowing the answer full well.  The look that passes over the asset’s face tells Brock he’s right.  He laughs again, because of course they hadn’t.  Rogers would have beaten Brock’s face in if he’d known.  “Course not.  You got all that back on your own.  Good boy,” Brock smiles, and the asset visibly shudders and drops its eyes, half turns away expecting the blow even from this distance, like Brock’s not handcuffed to a pipe.  One shoulder hitches up and the asset watches the floor in front of Brock’s feet, looking for movement without looking him in the face.  Brock doesn’t have to move because the asset’ll come to him.  “Rogers, Wilson,” Brock says slowly, watching the asset tense up like it knows exactly where this is headed, “Romanoff, Barton, Hill, Coulson, they only know what’s in the files and the files always left out the good parts, didn’t they?”

The asset takes a couple of shuddery breaths and takes a step back.  Doesn’t try to answer, because Brock and the asset both already know.

“You remember that time in Vientiane?” Rumlow asks rhetorically, since the asset either does or doesn’t and it’s not like it matters either way.  If Rogers has the asset playing at shit like dignity and shame, Brock’ll use it for everything it’s worth.  “I dug a bullet out of your thigh in that shitty little hotel and you told me to fuck off then, too, until I let you finish my warm Beerlao.  Looked like it hurt like a bitch but you took cock from the whole team like a champ all night after that, just for another half a shitty Asian beer.  Think Rogers wants to hear about that when he gets back here?”

The asset’s mouth twists and works like it’s trying to find words for something, but nothing happens.  Nothing to say.

“Get over here,” Brock says again.

There’s a long silence that stretches out as the asset’s breath hitches and comes short, but Brock’s always had a soft spot for the asset and it’s going to take the cavalry a while, so he can afford to be patient.

The asset takes one heavy step towards him and then another, and like gravity it turns inevitable the closer the asset gets until the asset’s standing right in front of him.  Brock rattles the handcuffs and the asset presses a thumb to the fingerprint lock, hands warm and eyes down.  Brock tucks the handcuffs into his pocket and puts a hand on the asset’s face, cupping jaw and the back of the asset’s neck.  The asset’s clean shaven, not even the shadow of stubble under Brock’s hand, and the earrings are pretty cute, just round little steel studs.  Cap doesn’t have such bad taste after all.

Brock runs his thumb over the asset’s cheek, and the asset turns into it just a little, same as always.  So easy.  Brock finally tosses away his own coat and undoes the buttons of the asset’s.  Now that Brock knows who the asset’s supposed to be, the coat’s a good ringer for the one in the Smithsonian.  More of Cap’s useless sentimentality.  Brock pushes it off the asset’s shoulders, and all the asset’s got on underneath is a goddamn hipster v-necked black tshirt, tight enough that the asset’s nipples and scar tissue around the arm stand out under it.

And fucking hickies.  Dotted all up and down the asset’s throat where they’d been hidden by the stand collar of the coat and—yeah.  Brock moves the collar of the shirt aside with one finger as the asset shivers even though Brock can feel the heat and smell of sweat radiating off it, and the hickies disappear down the asset’s chest below the tshirt.

There’s one right on the roll of the asset’s shoulder, big and dark and right where it can only mean someone was fucking the asset from behind when they put it there.  “Cap’s not such a virgin after all, huh?” Brock says, watching the asset wince as Brock squeezes its shoulder over the bruise.  Brock brings a hand up to cup the asset’s cheek, running his thumb over the asset’s lips thoughtfully.  Still pliant and warm as ever, the asset half chases it when Brock drags the asset’s lower lip with his thumb.  “Down,” Brock says, and the asset’s mouth twists but doesn’t move a muscle otherwise.

“Go to hell,” the asset says finally, but it’s faint and the asset’s still got its cheek pressed to Brock’s hand, eyes down.  Brock watches the muscles around the asset’s eyes and mouth tighten—like—like the asset’s trying not to _cry_.  That’s pretty cute.  Brock smiles and backhands the asset against the wall.

The asset stumbles back, boneless and breathing raggedly, cheek red around the blush where Brock slapped it.  Hard as fuck too, no hiding it in skinny jeans, and that’s some Pavlovian shit.  Brock steps into the asset’s space and puts a hand back on the asset’s face.

“Christ, you’re pathetic,” Brock says affectionately.  He runs a hand through the asset’s short hair; still long enough to grab, and the thought of Rogers doing this gets him harder.  “Bet this would hurt like a bitch when it got torn out,” he says, and gives the asset’s earring a little tug.  The asset’s eyes squeeze shut, but the asset doesn’t move otherwise and still leans into Brock’s other hand in its hair.

The asset doesn’t flinch or move away as Brock drops hands to the asset’s belt and makes quick work of the buckle and fly, because this has been inevitable since the asset got on the plane and they both know it.  The asset’s breath quickens as Brock shoves it around face first against the wall and starts shoving down the asset’s pants.

“What the fuck is this?” Brock says, and Rollins would have a good laugh at the way Brock’s stopped practically cupping the asset’s tight ass, but that poor bastard’s dead.  But someone’s put the asset in goddamn _panties_ , or one step away anyway, faggy black boxer briefs with little pink and blue flowers across the ass.  “Cap pick these out?  Or Wilson?”

“Fuck you,” the asset stutters against the wall, voice unsteady as Brock digs fingers into the asset’s hips.  “I don’t need to hurt people to prove my masculinity.”

Brock laughs because it’s such a goddamn boyscout thing to say he can practically hear it in Rogers’ voice.  Doesn’t matter anyway who put the pretty little panties on the asset because Brock’s shoving them down and—shit.  Brock kicks the asset’s feet wider because not only has Cap or Wilson put bite marks all down the asset’s neck and back, but over the asset’s ass and inner thighs too.  Brock runs a hand up the inside of the asset’s thigh and laughs under his breath because Cap eating out the asset is beyond even Brock’s dirty fantasies.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” the asset says, voice rough and choked.  Brock ignores it and pulls his cock out, putting a hand on the asset’s neck with fingers tight over the asset’s thready pulse jumping as Brock spits on his hand.  

The asset shivers agains the wall but doesn’t move a muscle otherwise as Brock steadies himself in.  It’s good, really fucking good, the asset’s still tight as a virgin even though Brock’s seen Rogers in the showers enough to know exactly how wrecked the asset should be.  Always was one of the nice things about the asset, tightened back up no matter what happened.

The asset breathes ragged and sharp through teeth and nose, like getting ready for the chair as Brock fucks into the wall harder.  The asset always managed plenty of pain, just never very quietly.  

There’s a brief moment where the asset struggles against the wall, but Brock yanks the asset’s head back by the hair and bites the asset’s shoulder, in a perfect mirror of the one on the asset’s other shoulder, a little calling card for Cap to see who else was here.

The asset gasps wetly and stiffens, practically collapsing against Brock.  He laughs because nothing changes much and the asset comes with ragged little breaths against the wall and gets even fucking tighter, and keeping the asset pulled backwards by the hair and pinned against the dirty wall is about the only thing keeping the asset upright as Brock finishes.

Brock doesn’t last as long as he’d like, and it’s over for him when the asset moans weakly, sweet tight ass fluttering with aftershock as Brock snaps his hips twice and then grinds as he finishes.  The asset’s skin is almost too fucking hot to touch and Brock’s got the smell of Old Spice, sweat, metal and come on him, but fuck was it worth it.  He bites at the asset’s pretty little earring just to feel the asset shudder one last time before pulling out.

He tucks himself away before putting the asset back together, spinning the asset to get the faggy boxer briefs and belt back up over the asset’s still half hard dick.  Just like old times, getting ready for a covert op, and Brock smiles at the asset practically nostalgic.  

“Down,” Brock says again, and the asset crumples easy as anything, knees landing on the concrete with a satisfying crack.

Brock stands there for a minute, admiring his work.  Thinks about handcuffing the asset and taking it with, but they’ll be too identifiable together once Brock makes it back to street level.  Connecting with whatever part of the cell here is holding out is out of the question with Cap and the rest clearing out the building.  He thinks about handcuffing the asset to a pipe just for the poetic justice of it when Rogers gets back, but that’s almost too easy.  And it’s better without, because if it’s good knowing that Cap and friends will find the asset like this, it’s even better knowing that all Brock had to do was give the order.  Let them doubt what else the asset might still do on Hydra’s orders.

Brock grabs his own coat and picks up the asset’s to fish the earpiece out, and Wilson’s voice crackles out right on cue.  “Bucky?  Bucky, come on, check in, what’s your status?”  Someone, Rogers probably, is making a shit ton of noise in the background.  Brock taps qthe earpiece back into the asset’s ear and pats the asset’s cheek.

“Tell Cap I said thanks,” Brock says.  Runs a thumb over the asset’s swollen lips.  Pity he didn’t have time for anything else.

The asset looks up at that, eyes red and throat working.  Definitely crying, as much as the asset can cry, a weird attempt to mimic emotions with dry eyes and that unsettling stiffness even in its choked breathing.  

“No,” the asset says.

“Bucky?” Rogers’ voice says through the earpiece before the others break through, loud enough that the asset winces, eyes squeezing shut.  “Bucky, are you okay?  What—“

Brock sighs.  “Don’t know why they bother having you play pretend,” Brock says, running a hand through the asset’s hair.  The asset shudders but leans into it anyway, same as always.  “Not like you’ll ever pass for normal.”

Brock turns to go, because he’s got shit to do and the asset’s not on that list anymore.  The door at the bend in the corridor opens for him, and it’s not the server racks, but it does look like Brock remembers it.  There’ll be a stack of burner phones, unmarked bills and some passports hidden in a ceiling tile in the shitty little custodian’s office off the underground garage if Brock’s good luck keeps up.

“Burning wreckage was too good for you, Rumlow,” the asset says quietly to the floor.  Brock throws a smile over his shoulder and shuts the door between them, whistling Cap’s theme song.


	4. Chapter 4

The worst part of it isn’t that Bucky’s there for all of it, because he is.  He’s there for Rumlow’s fingers in his hair, practically gentle like he always was, and Rumlow’s come leaking out of him, because Bucky had always been there for it.  Not always remembering context or thinking about much, but there.

The worst part of it isn’t that he’s there for it.  Rumlow had never been particularly creative or cruel, and he only had so much time.  Compared to some of them, Rumlow had been practically a reprieve.  Bucky had _looked forward_ to Rumlow as much as he’d looked forward to anything, then.  This time is hardly anything.

The worst part isn’t that the rest of them know before they even see him, because Bucky just knelt there obediently and let Rumlow walk away.  There’s not a mark on him and they know before they even seem him kneeling there with come leaking out his ass.  Steve, Natalia, Sam, Barton, even if they don’t know the rest yet, they know he’ll follow orders, they’ve seen him left kneeling there, they’ve seen that it’s all just been playacting these past few months.  He’s just gotten better at pretending.  Sam and Natalia suspected, and this is just confirmation.

When the team asked for his approval to bring Rumlow, Bucky couldn’t decide if it would be worse facing Rumlow if the bastard had told all first or kept it all to himself.  It was fine, he was fine, until the bastard started talking, because no one else knew and Bucky was fine so long as he pretended it would stay that way.  

Because of course Steve and Nat and Shield wouldn’t have let Rumlow near him if they knew, because Bucky wouldn’t have been in the field to begin with.  Not if they knew how easy Bucky would follow orders.

Would always follow orders.  Because if it happened again, Bucky knew he’d do the same again.  Follow orders.  Not fight back.  Kneel.  Let Rumlow walk away.

But now they’ve seen, and after Rumlow and Hydra took everything else, that’s the worst part.  Even after everything Hydra’s taken, there’ll always be something new to take as long as Bucky chases normal.  Steve’s knees crack on the concrete beside him and Bucky lets himself be folded into Steve’s arms, because it’s no worse than anything else that happened, and Rumlow’s right.


End file.
